sysm

John Wesley Harding (@wesleystace) played at Schuba’s the other night. I brought Al Gato along. Hopefully, he won’t become quite so obsessive as he has when he’s worn the twice removed vinyl grooves off of the MP3 versions of tracks from Joe Pernice, Paul Kelly or Sam Phillips.

Our co-worker, TT, is a bit of a JWH obsessive, having seen him in environments at an age where, by all legal rights, the event promoter should have been fitted with a permanent ankle monitor just for letting her in. We said hello to TT when we arrived and took the two seats next to her and her guy, which were right in the middle of the front row. This was a tactical error.

Just before he came on, Al was asking about a song that was playing over the P.A., I was going to use Shazam on my phone to try to find out, but Wes was ready to play before my ancient, outmoded, almost irrelevant device was ready to to its task. I was maybe six feet away from him (“maybe” because I don’t have depth perception, he could have been there via a closed circuit television broadcast for all I know). So I didn’t want to be fumbling around with pockets while he launched his first song. So I held the phone (face down, ringer off, no glowy-things going on) in my hand until an opportune break. As the crowd clapped, I pocketed the phone, which prompted Wes to say, “It takes a full song for people to put away their iphones these days.” (He might have said it using camel case, but my depth perception extends to discerning inline capitalization, my apologies to Apple Inc.)

A woman sitting behind me was tapping her foot on the back of my chair to the music. Not the music on stage, mind you. Probably music from one of the “Holiday Favorites” stations. I could have sworn she was tapping out “Good King Wenceslas”. We were sitting on folding chairs, so I tried to inch my chair up a little to avoid her kicking. Again, being right in front, I didn’t want to call attention to either of us, I just wanted to enjoy the show without the would-be counterpoint rhythm. My kicky friend appreciated my gesture, as she now crossed her legs out in front of her, the better to kick the chair in the small of my back. Over the course of a few songs, I was able to identify the amount of lag between Wes’ rhythm strum, her ears, and the time it took for the rhythm to make it down to her foot. I calibrated and did my best to tune it out.

Wes played for almost two hours. I enjoyed it all. The song selection. The amazing use of an array of impressive audio effects that made his guitar sound like anything from an acoustic guitar to a slightly quieter acoustic guitar wowed the crowd. The banter (when not directed at me) was even more enjoyable.

Dag Juhlin joined Wes for several songs. They complimented each other nicely, in performance, voice and conversation. This really threw off my chair kicker, she tried to follow both guitars. She failed and flailed. I was dreading her trying to use both feet at once.

I looked up Dag’s website the next day. He’s a freelance copywriter. Cool. We hire scads of freelance copywriters, and I’ll see if I can get him in the mix. The only thing is:

I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering. I’m not really a fan of Poi Dog Pondering.

(How did Frank Orrall write lyrics before the advent of copy and paste, or the number eight?) Ok, I like “Big Beautiful Spoon”. But I’m romantic to melancholy.

By the time of the encore, I had scooted my chair up so far, I was essentially in a row of my own. With Wes and Dag at the side of the stage, I finally turned to the woman behind me and asked (politely, I promise) if it would be all right if she could stop kicking the chair. The look on her face showed that she was completely unaware that she’d been doing that, and that she’d been bothering me, and I could tell that she was thinking of all of the times that I’d scooted up. She looked about to cry. Which made me feel a heel. I apologized in return, and assured her it wasn’t a big deal. And it wasn’t.

Dag and Wes closed with a cover of Julian Cope’s “All the Blowing-Themselves-Up_Motherfuckers”. Which is as close to a new holiday standard as I can think of.

There were a number of songs that I would have enjoyed hearing but didn’t. The crowd made several requests. One person asked for “The Devil in Me”, which was pretty close to a radio hit from Wes’ major-label debut. I hope this same fellow doesn’t shout out for “Is She Really Going Out With Him” at Joe Jackson shows.

I didn’t say any requests out loud. I had tweeted them, per Wes’ request earlier in the day. He didn’t play them. While Al was buying some merchandise after the show, I said to Wes, “I made my requests as I was taught as a boy. Like a gentleman. By ‘tweet’.” He apologized and said that he hadn’t checked Twitter since midday. Fair enough. I’ll see him again. And I won’t shout out for “The Devil in Me.”